Lance CarSon

Lance Carson at Malibu
"We were judged by our surfing ability," Mike Doyle wrote, "-- nothing else -- and my surfing ability had improved to the point that I rated some respect.
"One of my buddies at Malibu in those days was Lance Carson. We called him 'Jet Pilot' because he had a perfectly pointed nose. Lance was from a wealthy family in Pacific Palisades, and every winter his parents sent him back East to some private military school. But in the summer he spent all his time at the beach. He was at a big disadvantage in some ways, because every year by the time he got out of school, the rest of us were already tanned and surfing really well, while Lance would still be all white and educated. But by the end of summer Lance would be surfing as well, or better, than any of us.
"Besides having a very smooth, clean style of surfing, Lance became one of the greatest nose riders of all time. While most surfers could only run up to the nose and pose there for a few seconds, Lance could stand there almost indefinitely and in total control -- he could actually maneuver the board from the nose.In my case, my dad used to take me to Malibu on weekends in the summer. At that time, he was an engineer at Northrop Aircraft Company and had been working on the original ''Flying Wing''. After gathering information at the beach, he was able to find some wood at L.A harbor and shape my first board in the garage...That was the way it was done. As far as crowds were concerned...there were none. Some days you would actually hope that more guys would show up so you wouldn't have to surf alone. It was a time when the water was clear and words such as ''ecology'' and ''pollution'' were unheard of. Guys never pushed you out of the way. They would allow you to drop in because it was ''cool'' to ride a wave with a buddy. And you could hone your surfing skills very quickly because surf spots were never crowded. Compared to today's technology, those early wood boards were primitive and heavy. But the long rides into the cove enabled us to spend our summers developing our classic, erect ballet-like styles. If I wasn't in the water, I would sit on the beach and study the surfing styles of the early hot-dog masters such as Matt Kevlin and Mickey Dora. I knew then that surfing was going to be a part of my life forever.